Quote of the Day
“If we are to keep our democracy, there must be one commandment: Thou shalt not ration justice.”
Learned Hand
Judge Learned Hand delivered that warning to the Legal Aid Society of New York in 1951. The line was about access to justice, but its question reaches far beyond a courtroom: Who gets the full protection of society, and who receives whatever is left?
Justice can be rationed without anyone announcing that it is being rationed.
It happens when a person has a right on paper but cannot afford to defend it.
When someone with influence receives attention immediately while somebody without money or connections waits.
When a victim is told to remain patient because the person accused of harming them is important.
When two people face the same system but discover that status, disability, gender, poverty or family name changes how that system treats them.
A society does not prove its commitment to justice by how well it protects people who already have power.
The harder test is what happens to the person who arrives with nothing but their story.
Can they still be heard?
Can they still challenge a wrong?
Can they still expect the rules to apply?
Justice loses some of its meaning when people must first be powerful enough to obtain it.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice — remarks citing Learned Hand’s 1951 statement on justice and democracy.
Did You Know?
About one in six people worldwide lives with a significant disability.
That is approximately 1.3 billion people, according to the World Health Organization.
But here is the part worth thinking about.
Disability is not only about what a person’s body can or cannot do.
WHO explains that disability is also shaped by the environment around a person: inaccessible buildings, transport that cannot accommodate them, negative attitudes, poor social support and other barriers can all restrict participation.
Consider a child who uses crutches.
The child reaches school.
Then there are stairs.
The classroom is upstairs.
Where, exactly, is the problem?
In the child?
Or in a school that was designed as though every child would move through it in exactly the same way?
The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities requires equal access to buildings, roads, transportation, information, schools, medical facilities, workplaces and other public services.
This is not distant from Cameroon.
In the North-West and South-West regions, UNICEF has documented children with disabilities facing insecurity, stigma and inaccessible learning environments. More than 3,000 children have been screened through one inclusive-education initiative, with children receiving crutches, hearing aids, glasses and other assistive devices.
One boy, Princewill, had been walking to school with a stick while classmates mocked him. After receiving crutches, he told UNICEF that he could move properly and approach his final school year with greater confidence.
Sometimes inclusion begins with legislation.
Sometimes it begins with something as ordinary as a ramp, a hearing aid, an accessible bus—or somebody deciding that another person’s difference should never become a reason to leave them outside.
Sources: World Health Organization — Disability · United Nations — Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities · UNICEF Cameroon — Inclusive education in crisis.
For discussion: When a person with a disability cannot enter a school, workplace, hospital or public building, who should be expected to adapt—the person or the environment?
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